Beauty | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Beauty

A Signature Faith

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Faith and I have hit a rough patch lately. It’s only the five zillionth time or so that I’ve found myself alternately doubting God and storming against him; my inner teenager is determined to become a proper heathen, I think. In these times when my thoughts about religion smolder and char, the Bible reacts like gasoline, every word going up in an angry blaze. (I’m a joy to have at church, can you tell?) And anyway, I’ve never bought into Sola Scriptura for the same reason that I don’t believe Fox News when it claims to be the only unbiased channel—conflict of interest and all. I just cannot bring myself to blindly trust a source alleging to be the only truth.

So I sift through experience and impressions, listen to my instincts, taste the air for clues. I don’t have God’s character figured out, but I have to trust at least this: that he left his imprint on creation, that some remote corner of me bears his signature. And when I tune out theology altogether, I can almost start to make it out.

The first belief I find inked onto my heart is heaven. Doctrinally, the subject has always made me feel homesick and even miserable—hard golden streets and individual mansions in the sky for God’s groupies. No, no, no, my soul whispers. You were made for trees, whole unscarred forests of trees, and waterfalls and snowcapped mountains at sunrise. You were made to climb inside of symphonies and breathe art. And the puzzle pieces lock together in my mind: the moments I find myself on the cusp of pure creative energy… the healing, cleansing effects of beauty… this drive for more, always more out of life… the profound sensation that this world is broken… These compel me more than decades of sermons could that we were meant for eternity.

The other thing I can’t help believing, no matter how I feel about God, is Jesus. Maybe this makes no sense considering the Bible and I aren’t on speaking terms, but everything he said and did resonates so strongly with me and has so little to do odious churchy representations of him that I feel I must have always known him. I believe in him, not because I was told to (which only makes me want to go vandalize something), but because he wasn’t repulsed by doubt or greed or prostitution or shame or immaturity or nakedness or insanity. Because his commitment to world peace and soul-honesty would have offended many of the uppity religious personas today who profess to follow him. Because he drew people’s perspectives away from materialism and perfectionism toward extravagant generosity and fierce acceptance. Because he was radically different from anyone’s expectations and had love strong enough to forgive the people who butchered him.

The idea of heaven is counterintuitive to our five senses, and a kick-ass Jesus is counterintuitive to our religious traditions, and somehow, this helps convince me that they are true. And if these two things are the shape of God’s signature, then this helps convince me that faith is worth every minute of struggle.

31Aug

Colors Blend

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“I hold everything that is—
sand, time, the tree of the rain,
everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all…”
~ Pablo Neruda

I imagine myself creating collages from wisps of words and these late-summer colors that will flutter away too soon.

I imagine myself writing at the desk in my corner nook with the autumn-tinted curtains and the window overlooking the fig tree, maybe wearing glasses, certainly with a mug of something inspiring.

I imagine myself flowing with the energy that produces firm abdominals and freshly baked cinnamon rolls, open eyes before the first alarm and no snoozing.

I imagine myself hanging my personality on the line and letting the breeze smooth away the wrinkles.

I imagine myself dissolving the judgment I feel (or conjure) at church in a jar of full-strength understanding until the colors blend together and I realize nothing is going to explode.

I imagine myself floating away on a Nickel Creek song into the dragonfly blue with a cloud bank pillow and the sun playing grace notes on my eyelids.

I imagine myself drinking in the love around me with thirsty pores and watching the too-tired, upset-stomach, bad-mother days blossom into life more abundant.

29Aug

Libidinous Angels

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Growing up, I was never particularly fond of my freckles, by which I mean I hated them with the fire of a thousand suns. On the best days, I looked like a baby, and on the worst—for instance, after a morning of the Texas sun spreading rash-like across my skin—I looked like a lobster with fleas. Of this I was sure. “How cute!” middle-aged women at church would croon. “Angel kisses!” Yeah, an assault by the heavenly hosts, I would think. Probably the same angels that watch me pee. (Religious dysfunction, anyone?)

I stopped caring so much in high school, probably about the time I delved into makeup and black underwear and figured out that I was not entirely repulsive to the opposite gender. I started seeing my face rather than a splatter of unfortunate pigmentation in the mirror. Even now, living in a country of olive-skinned goddesses, I’m content to adorn my angel kisses in SPF 700 and look like my pale luminous self.

That being said, I didn’t realize how much tension would unwind in my heart when we entered the United Kingdom the first week of our vacation. All around us were quilt-blocked pastures dotted with sheep, paths meandering around a gentle sea, and freckles. Nearly everyone at our campground had a sprinkling of soft brown flecks, which launched my self-esteem into a musical number with dancing candlesticks and a chorus of syncopated bluebirds. I felt like I belonged. Even more, I finally saw what those middle-aged women had been crooning about. Because libidinous angels or not, freckles are kind of cute. Possibly even on me.

26Aug

Exclusive Access

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Car Lingus – Part 2 (Part 1 here)

My husband’s boss works consistent 90-hour weeks and sees vacation as a time to cram in even more hours. He will fly to the United States for a meeting and then fly back in a single day, and if he’s running late to a social event, he just might rent a helicopter. He also likes to pull over rude motorists using his fake police light. The man’s interpretation of rational is on a different planet than ours… but even he thought we were crazy for attempting a drive to Ireland and back with two small children and a trunkful of camping gear in tow.

(He wasn’t even factoring in the rain that awaited in every single country, every single DAY of our trip.)

I’ll admit it was disconcerting that a man who drinks fourteen espressos a day thought our vacation plan was madness, but many of our best family memories are a result of our spontaneous (and possibly deranged) travels. Day 13 of this trip was no exception.

We had a tentative outline of a plan for the day:
1)      Take ferry from Dublin
2)      See sun for the first time in a week
3)      Revel, tan toes on dashboard, etc.
4)      All fall asleep except Dan, who would
5)      Drive us to Cardiff, at which point, we would
6)      Try to find obscure campsite we looked up online
7)      Eat, sleep, continue homeward

We made it to point 3 ½ before the Welsh landscape outside the car started punching our eyes out with its otherworldly beauty. It was like Tolkein’s imagination come to life or God’s favorite mystery novel, or maybe the moon. We passed short stone walls holding up craggy green mountains dotted with sheep and shale alike. We glimpsed rock formations plunging into rivers and secret clefts lined with dusky purple heather… and then we spotted the waterfalls. Did we really have any choice but to pull over, wake the girls up, and go mountain climbing? (No.)

Natalie may be young, but I hope that afternoon will sparkle as much in her memory when she’s 86 as it does now. It didn’t matter that we were wearing completely the wrong shoes or that the wind whipped our thin jackets into batter; we were having an adventure together in some of the most enchanting landscapes on earth. We were mountain goats. We were cavemen. We were Sacagawea, Yeats, and Aragorn all at once. Dan picked bouquets of heather for us, then went off to scale a cliff while the girls and I sang “Old MacDonald Had a Waterfall” into the blustery sky until we were dizzy. It was perfect.

In keeping with the impulsive theme, we blew off our original plan and followed a campground sign near the adorable town of Betws-y-Coed. Can I give a shout-out to spontaneity right now? Because that is how we ended up pitching our tent in the sloping green of a Welsh sheep farm with Snowdon Mountain sneaking peeks at us through the clouds. It was far beyond what I had imagined when I added camping in a national park to Ye Olde Life List, far more breathtaking, epic. I’m starting to think of spontaneity as a members-only club that has exclusive access to all the magic in life. (You may not think sheep are anything magical, but don’t tell that to your toddler.)

The next day, after breaking camp in the sunshine and driving off in a thunderstorm, we made our way to a place with a different kind of enchantment, one whispering of human effort and mystery. Stonehenge was smaller than I expected at first… but it grew in my mind as we followed the giant ring in the earth, learning about its mythology. My spine has a special thrill reserved for secrets of the universe—impossible ancient architecture, symphony notes in space, the concept of eternity—and this cluster of tall blue stones reverberated with the magic of un-knowing.

We wandered into the surrounding countryside, having conversations with mistrustful cows and swinging on barrow gates. Time evaporated there under the rolling English skies; we could easily have drifted through the wild grass until we turned into barrow wights. Of course, then we would have missed our train across the Channel, an unspeakable horror to the tune of €120. We turned toward home, making the 1500 kilometer drive without incident and then holding a joyful (if not exactly conscious) reunion with our pillowtop mattress. However, I think a part of me stayed behind to haunt the island—clambering up Welsh outcroppings, holding trysts in Celtic forests, and tip-toeing around the mysteries of my British ancestors.

I guess this simply means I’ll have to go back again. Preferably soon.

24Aug

By the Spoonful

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Car Lingus – Part 1

It caught me by surprise every day of our crazy vacation. Slipping up behind me like boys in college used to do, covering my eyes and whispering, “Guess who?”, the realization that we’re seeing the world startled me into an aching kind of gladness. It’s the same ache that grips my chest at concerts and symphonies, while reading a perfect novel, during twilight Mass at the Notre Dame—when a trickle of fulfillment finds its way into my deep, deep need for beauty.

This was a trip for slurping beauty by the spoonful from the moment we drove off into the sunrise three weekends ago. That first day brought us through the Dolomites (“Elephant hills!” exclaimed Natalie in a fit of Hemingway) to the Austrian Alps—a fairytale panorama of glittering green mountainsides frosted in clouds. “The hilllllllllls are aliiiiiiiiiive!” I didn’t sing, though the untamed nun in me was quite tempted. Even more enchanting than the mountains were the cozy valley villages with their honey-and-cream houses, traditional red steeples, and flowers—flowers bursting from every window box, flowers spilling out of every garden gate, flowers brightening the woodwork on every balcony, flowers bringing extravagant glory to every street corner. Not even the downpour that evening could dilute the splashes of color.

I would have been content spending the rest of our vacation (and/or lives) eating Edelweiss cheese in a Hansel and Gretel cottage, but thankfully my husband convinced me to get back in the car. Our second day brought us through Pennsylvania fields a very familiar-looking stretch of Germany to the old world sophistication of Munich. Dear friends (hi, Heike!) walked us through downtown where beautiful buildings towered overhead and at least three H&Ms were always in sight. We had the distinction of being refused service at the Hofbräuhaus by a grumpy waitress in a dirndl, but Munich redeemed itself by offering river surfers, stark naked frisbee players (octogenarians all, unfortunately for our eyes), and pretzels and pints at a welcoming beer garden to end the day. Honestly, the city’s natural beauty paled in comparison to the loveliness of spending a day with people we adore… but that’s how it should be, isn’t it?

Our next destination was Folkestone, England, which we reached after driving through the farmlands of no less than five different countries in one day. (I like to think this makes us half superhuman, or quarter at the very least). The long, oh so very long trip in the car was worth every minute when we pulled into our campsite and looked out at this:

With the sunset rolling in across the Channel, Dover’s famous white cliffs gleamed like wild candles. We forgot about supper and walked along the shore, our hair waltzing with the wind, and befriended snails in every tide pool. On the four-year-old’s imperative, we pretended there were pirates in the water—an imagining colored in the next day by finding out there had been pirates only a week before. From then on, it was pirates as we browsed the shopping district and pirates as we explored a leery-eyed graveyard, and two very small pirates nearly burst with “Aarrrr”s when we found a sunken ship playground near the beach. Mutinous Mommy even found treasure by accidentally discovering Charles Dickens’ house during an uncharted ramble.

The next leg of our journey took us on a ferry cutting through the wide swath of deep blue water between Great Britain and Ireland. My first impression of the Emerald Isle was traffic, ack!, followed by brr, followed by brrrrrrrrrrr, followed by why didn’t we pack the winter coats?, followed by thank God our tent is so small that we HAVE to share body heat all night long. Sophie woke up in a pool of rainwater one morning, I routinely lost feeling in several extremities (including my head), and we may have resorted to ramen noodles for supper… but the silhouette of cloud banks over impossibly green grass was a beauty worth shivering for. (Plus, there was Smithwick’s on tap.)

On Day 13, we finally boarded the return ferry to start our long trip back home, little knowing that the most soul-thrilling beauty was still ahead…

(On to Part 2…)

21May

Slumbering Magic

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At least once a year, I read Ray Bradbuary’s Dandelion Wine cover to cover. It has been a soul tradition since I first picked up the paperback at age 15 and lost a bit of my heart among the pages. And who wouldn’t? The book is a celebration of childhood and summertime equally, of life and death and the daily discoveries that make them so much more, written in the most delicious prose I’ve ever tasted.

“His breath raked over his teeth, going in ice, coming out fire. Ten thousand individual hairs grew a millionth of an inch on his head. He heard the twin hearts beating in each ear, the third heart beating in his throat, the two hearts throbbing his wrists, the real heart pounding his chest. The million pores on his body opened.
I’m really alive! he thought. I never knew it before…” *

Magic.

Every time I venture into its pages, I am twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding. I suddenly feel the need for tennis shoes and old-fashioned lime-vanilla ice, plus a sip of the mysterious dandelion wine just to try. I experience all the curiosity and fear and wondering joy woven into the stories. But despite how much I love the book, my heart floods with a soft pale-pink sadness at the end of each chapter because I wish it were mine. The writing. The nostalgia. The memories in print.

I have a hard time explaining the way Dandelion Wine tugs at me because it’s not jealousy… yet it is. I dearly want to write a book that captures people’s imaginations in the same way, and I think I could. I feel the magic slumbering just beneath the surface of my ability. But I’m missing the nostalgia, and that’s one thing a writer can’t make up. My childhood memories will never make the cut for an exploration of whimsy, and this dear adult life of mine needs a few more years to brew still.

So I take the book for what it was to me at 15—a miraculous first date with metaphors—and what it is to me now—a diamond trembling with a thousand emotional hues. My sadness is not an enemy, nor is it the face of defeat. Rather, it’s the whispered promise of nostalgia in my future. You will write of your own magic one day, you will…

—

* I had a ridiculously hard time choosing an exemplary passage from the book because every sentence in the thing is perfect. Some lazy day this summer, pour yourself a tall glass of lemonade, pick up a copy of Dandelion Wine, and read until your toes begin to tingle. That’s an order.

15Apr

The Ghost of Happiness Past

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Part 1

The lemon perfume brings it all back, nostalgia setting in after only three days back home. Perhaps this makes me a drippy sentimentalist, but I’m okay with that. This was a trip worth feeling drippy and sentimental over.

It all started on Thursday. The spouse who comes up with 90% of our insane great ideas casually mentioned over lunch, “Hey, I have tomorrow off work. Want to go camping on the Amalfi Coast?” Try as she might to get bogged down in details, the practical spouse’s latent whimsy had been triggered. “Sure!” I chirped while sprinting for the grocery store.

As often as spontaneity gives me spasms, it’s one of the things I love most about our little family. How a day can morph from average to incredible in the space of a sentence, how my husband and girls are always ready to take on the world. I don’t thank them nearly enough for stirring up glittery waves in the life I would all-too-readily leave stagnant. “We’re standing on memories!” Natalie announced when we piled out of the car at Herculaneum on Friday. Glorious.

Herculaneum is not exactly on the Amalfi Coast, but how could we pass up the opportunity to explore a city once buried in 20 meters of volcanic debris? We couldn’t. We entered houses last occupied two millenniums ago, pushed strollers up cobblestone streets, imagined ourselves serving restaurant patrons from the giant clay cooking pots… and my heart stretched a size or two larger as it always does when I discover new corners of the world. A real person painted that fresco. The neighborhood women bathed together in that tub. The owners of this house must have had an unbelievable view of the sea. The ghost of happiness past never fails to take my breath and replace it with a reverent joy.

Natalie and Sophie consider ancient city ruins their own personal playground, which assures me that this crazy life we’ve brought them into is a good one. It’s the future Dan and always hoped for—watching our laughing children play balance-beam in an archaeological dig. History and future, projected together on the sun-dappled stones… with a splash of silliness, because we’re really still twelve.

Driving away from the ruins through the never-ending outskirts of Naples was a noteworthy experience in itself. Neapolitan traffic is a noisy tangle of bent-fendered anarchy, and we were utterly fortunate considering that we DIDN’T DIE. On the main one-way street outside of Herculaneum, four cars were disregarding the stoplight. A delivery truck and sixteen scooters were driving the wrong direction. Several motorists had ventured onto the sidewalk, and everyone involved was using his horn in lieu of the brakes. I took no pictures because I was busy narrowly avoiding death, but I desperately wish I had at least videoed the rotunda. The Rotunda Of Bedlam And Nearly Certain Demise.

Despite being a mere three hours’ drive from our city, Naples is a different world where trash piles line the streets and laundry flaps off the edge of crumbling balconies. I never realized how grimy southern Italy would feel compared to the breezy affluence of the north. Whenever we spotted a well-kept house, Dan and I nodded at each other like experts—“Must be Camorra”—and drove a little more quickly. I was relieved to get out of the city and catch my first glimpse of La Costiera Amalfitana…

…And by “relieved,” I mean mesmerized, breathless, smitten. My daily dose of beauty for the next decade lay right before us. Sparkling sea guarded by intricate rock formations, purple wisteria sunning itself on garden gates, hillsides hidden beneath ripe lemon trees… Descriptions do so little justice to a part of the world that is, at heart, a sensory feast. Just trust me that magic was alive and generous around every bend of the road.

Look for Part 2, coming soon to a blog near you.

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